Gospel Story Finder

When the Americans had cleared the mountain and were gone, we left the house and marched on again toward home. A few days later, we were stopped once more by the Americans. At first I didn’t speak. I wanted to act like I didn’t know English. I heard them say, “Well, we’ll just let them sit here, and we’ll put them on the next truck that comes to transport them to a camp.” Trucks had been going by every two to three minutes.
We sat there waiting for a truck to come by any second. We waited and waited, for an hour or longer, but no truck came. I finally went up to the MP who was chewing gum. I had never seen anyone chew gum before—and he was talking at the same time.

I told him who we were, and he said, “Oh, all of a sudden you speak English.”
“Yes, I speak English. I learned it in school. I was just scared.”
“How old are you?” he asked me. I told him I was 17-and-a-half years old.
“Where have you been?”
I explained the whole thing—what we had done, why we had civilian clothes on, where we wanted to go—home. He called up on the phone and checked the outfits where we had been to see if the information I had given him was correct. Then he looked at me for a long time and said, “I have a boy about your age, and if he would say to someone, ‘I’d like to go home to Mother,’ I hope they’d give him the chance. If you take this road, there is an American headquarters; but if you take that road, they can’t see you. Good luck.”

Finally we were almost home. Everything was shut down. There was no train, no car, no bus, no telephone—nothing. So we continued crawling through the forest, following the creek. I knew that area well. We reached my neighborhood, and I just wanted to go through the gate of our neighbor’s backyard. I left the others and opened the gate. A little gun that had been put there to shoot the gophers went off. It scared the wits out of me and the neighbors, who quickly came running. But they were glad to see that I was home safely. I sent my sister back to the forest with some food for my friends before they continued on to their homes.

As I have pondered how we might best provide such examples, I have thought of an experience I had some years ago while attending a stake conference. During the general session, I observed a young boy sitting with his family on the front row of the stake center. I was seated on the stand. As the meeting progressed, I began to notice that if I crossed one leg over the other, the young boy would do the same thing. If I reversed the motion and crossed the other leg, he would follow suit. I would put my hands in my lap, and he would do the same. I rested my chin in my hand, and he also did so. Whatever I did, he would imitate my actions. This continued until the time approached for me to address the congregation. I decided to put him to the test. I looked squarely at him, certain I had his attention, and then I wiggled my ears. He made a vain attempt to do the same, but I had him! He just couldn’t quite get his ears to wiggle. He turned to his father, who was sitting next to him, and whispered something to him. He pointed to his ears and then to me. As his father looked in my direction, obviously to see my ears wiggle, I sat solemnly with my arms folded, not moving a muscle. The father glanced back skeptically at his son, who looked slightly defeated. He finally gave me a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders.
I have thought about that experience over the years as I’ve contemplated how, particularly when we’re young, we tend to imitate the example of our parents, our leaders, our peers. The prophet Brigham Young said: “We should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do. We should set them an example that we wish them to imitate.”
To you who are fathers of boys or who are leaders of boys, I say, strive to be the kind of example the boys need. The father, of course, should be the prime example, and the boy who is blessed with a worthy father is fortunate indeed. Even an exemplary family, however, with diligent and faithful father and mother, can use all the supportive help they can get from good men who genuinely care. There is also the boy who has no father or whose father is not currently providing the type of example needed. For that boy, the Lord has provided a network of helpers within the Church—bishops, advisers, teachers, Scoutmasters, home teachers. When the Lord’s program is in effect and properly working, no young man in the Church should be without the influence of good men in his life.
The effectiveness of an inspired bishop, adviser, or teacher has very little to do with the outward trappings of power or an abundance of this world’s goods. The leaders who have the most influence are usually those who set hearts afire with devotion to the truth, who make obedience to duty seem the essence of manhood, who transform some ordinary routine occurrence so that it becomes a vista where we see the person we aspire to be.
Not to be overlooked—and in fact our primary example—is our Savior, Jesus Christ. His birth was foretold by prophets; angels heralded the announcement of His earthly ministry. He “grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.”
Baptized of John in the river known as Jordan, He commenced His official ministry to men. To the sophistry of Satan, Jesus turned His back. To the duty designated by His Father, He turned His face, pledged His heart, and gave His life. And what a sinless, selfless, noble, and divine life it was. Jesus labored. Jesus loved. Jesus served. Jesus testified. What finer example could we strive to emulate? Let us begin now, this very night, to do so. Cast off forever will be the old self and with it defeat, despair, doubt, and disbelief. To a newness of life we come—a life of faith, hope, courage, and joy. No task looms too large; no responsibility weighs too heavily; no duty is a burden. All things become possible.

Since early childhood, Hal’s deepest dreams were to be married and form a family. He thought about his future children so often that he’d already given them the collective nickname “The Redheads,” imagining them with red hair like his mother’s.
This dream finally moved toward fruition during his service as a counselor in the Boston District presidency, a Church calling Hal had while he was pursuing his graduate work at Harvard University following his undergraduate studies at the University of Utah. As a doctoral student in the summer of 1960, Hal represented the district presidency at a single-adult devotional held at the Cathedral of the Pines in southwest New Hampshire, USA, a natural outdoor amphitheater of note in the region. At the event he saw a young woman in a red and white dress and was impressed by the pure goodness she radiated. He thought, “That’s the best person I’ve ever seen. If I could be with her for the rest of my life, I could be every good thing I ever wanted to be.”
The young woman was Kathleen Johnson from Palo Alto, California, USA, who hadn’t intended to be in New England that summer but, at the insistence of her friend, had attended summer school with her at Harvard. Following that outdoor devotional, Hal arranged to meet Kathy at church one Sunday and was happy to hear she enjoyed playing tennis. Hal had been playing tennis several times a week with a college friend and was a good natural athlete, so he assumed a game of tennis would be an ideal first date and a way for him to make a terrific impression. What Kathleen didn’t tell him was that she had been the captain of her high school tennis team! “She cleaned me out,” Hal still grumbles about the match. This was the first of his future wife’s remarkable examples of living humbly and then helping her husband to do so.
Following their marriage and Hal’s eventual appointment to the faculty of the business school at Stanford University, late one night in December 1970, just a few months before Hal was released as the bishop of the student ward in Palo Alto, Kathy asked a question seemingly out of the blue. As Hal climbed into bed after a demanding day, she leaned over and asked, “Are you sure you’re doing what you ought to be doing with your career?”
Her question caught him by surprise. Everything in their life seemed perfect. The future seemed bright and clear, even down to the Eyring dream home that Hal had recently outlined in his journal. It would include such niceties as “a room for projects, large enough and rough enough to work on and store a kayak,” along with “at least five electrical outlets by the kitchen table” and “a shed or bathhouse retreat for writing.”
“What do you mean?” Hal asked his wife.
“Couldn’t you do studies for Neal Maxwell?” she suggested, referring to the Church’s new Commissioner of Education. At this, Hal was truly dumbfounded. He had only met Neal A. Maxwell once, and he knew that Kathleen had never met him at all. He tried to describe to her why such a career shift would not be a good fit for him, yet she insisted he at least pray over the matter. This he did immediately, dropping to kneel by the bed and offering a short prayer. When no answer came, Hal felt the matter decided and soon went to sleep.
The following morning, however, Hal received two distinct spiritual impressions that would forever alter the course of his career and his life. He captured both in his journal. First, “Don’t use your human judgment to eliminate opportunities presented to you: pray about them all with an open mind.” And second, “Do the tasks you are assigned in the Church and your profession as well as you can; they are preparation.”
The first impression came as something of a rebuke that Hal would forever thereafter live by. After having previously rejected three different job offers without praying over them, into his mind came the words, “Don’t you ever make that mistake again. You don’t know which end is up in your career.”
With this spiritual direction fresh in his mind, Hal was prepared when less than three weeks later, Commissioner Maxwell called to schedule a meeting with him in Salt Lake City. Brother Maxwell got right to the point. “I’d like to ask you to be the president of Ricks College,” he said. Hal replied that he would have to pray about it. He did and the terse answer he received was, “It’s my school.” The rest, as they say, is history. His service in the Church since then has been as exemplary as it has been conspicuous, moving on to serve as Deputy Commissioner of Education and then Commissioner (twice), followed by calls to the Presiding Bishopric, the Quorum of the Seventy, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and as a counselor to three Presidents of the Church.
Photograph with President Hinckley from Deseret News
But in a very real sense to Hal, no calling in the Church was more important for him than another: “The pressures at every stage of life can tempt us to reject or neglect calls to serve the Savior,” President Eyring has taught. “Some of those calls may seem unimportant, but my life, and my family, was changed for the better by my accepting a call to teach a deacons quorum. I felt the love of those deacons for the Savior and His love for them.”2

Several years ago just before Christmas, my niece, Shelly, grabbed her mom’s hand and, without explanation, led her into the privacy of the laundry room. “Mom,” she asked in a serious whisper, “is it okay if I believe just one more year?”
Since that memorable happening, our family has established a family tradition. Each Christmas Eve, we gather together around the tree. With the lights low and the fire burning in the fireplace, we ask the question once again, the most important question of the year, “Is it okay if we believe one more year?”—not only believe in the traditions of childhood with Santa Claus and reindeer, but more importantly in the message of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whose birthday we are celebrating. Do we believe in his mission, his atonement, his resurrection? Do we believe in his invitation to come and follow him?
Of course we are not really committing ourselves for only a year. We are pledged to follow the Savior forever. But we live life a day, a week, a month, a year at a time, and Christmas is a season to focus on the year ahead and reconfirm our discipleship.
After a declaration of belief by one and all, the following question is sometimes harder: When we believe, how will that affect how we live, how we feel, what we will do and what we will not do? We then commit to strive to live as we believe and to help each other all year long.
Next, someone reads aloud The Polar Express by Chris Von Allsburg. In the story, a young boy says, “I shook the bell. It made the most beautiful sound my sister and I had ever heard, but my mother said, ‘Oh, that’s too bad.’ ‘Yes,’ said my father, ‘it’s broken.’ My parents had not heard a sound,” the story continues. “At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed it fell silent for all of them. Though I have grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.”
Following the story, we each receive a small new bell on a red satin ribbon to wear around our necks during the holidays. We listen for its clear sound as a testimony and commitment that we truly believe and will strive to live as we believe. While the fire burns low, we then read the glorious account of the Christmas story recorded by Luke, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). And we believe.

I would like to express my appreciation for J. Scott Henrie’s article “Harley-Davidson” which was published in the August 1985 New Era.
This story closely parallels the situation in my own family. I am about to complete my mission. When I came on my mission my youngest brother was 19 years old and totally inactive in the Church. His favorite pastime was motorbike riding, and he’d become involved with a “bad” group and was using drugs and was in trouble with the law.
When I read your story last year it really touched me. I could compare myself to Paul and my brother to Gus. At the same time as I read your story I also received a letter from my brother (the first in two months). He told me how proud he was of me for serving a mission and how he bragged to his friends about me. I never knew before how he’d felt about me and my mission. I had thought he didn’t care. But then I had hope for him—inspired by your story! I love that story. I posted it to my brother with my next letter.
A couple of weeks later he wrote me again and thanked me for the story and said it was great. Then he told me how he’d gone to church and seen the bishop and was trying to get his life straightened out. The next letter told me of his plans for a mission later this year. Since then he’s never missed church. Last May he was ordained an elder.
Of course I’m very happy. I know that my fasting and prayers have been answered. Your story has a place in my journal along with my brother’s letters. I wanted to share this with you because I thought you might enjoy a real-life story with a happy ending. Brother Henrie’s story was certainly inspired!
Name Withheld

“Before I was a member, I’d always notice Belle. She wasn’t lazy. Every Sunday she’d get up and go to church,” says Simon, who was baptized in 1992. “When Belle was a missionary, she was a good example to my family and she helped us.”
Rambo also talked about the gospel with Simon and helped him with his decision to be baptized. Simon’s now a priest in the Tuen Mun Second Ward.
Simon likes to think back to the time when he began seriously investigating the gospel. He remembers praying for the first time. “I really didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to pray or what I should say,” he remembers. “But I always felt good when I prayed.”
Before Simon joined the Church, Sundays were reserved for rest and relaxation. He would generally sleep in, then get up and play soccer with his friends. These days, his friends don’t even bother asking him to play games on the Sabbath. “They know now that I won’t play on Sunday. I’ve already told them I don’t do that, and they understand why I don’t and what I do instead,” he says. Sundays for Simon generally consist of church meetings and scripture reading. “I love studying in the Book of Mormon—especially about Lehi and the faith he had. My own faith isn’t great so it’s good for me to read about someone who was so strong.”

Mary and her family moved from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters. One time they traveled to St. Joseph, Missouri, to get supplies for the westward trek. Joseph F. and his uncle Joseph Fielding went with her. One morning they woke up to find that the oxen had strayed from camp. Joseph and his uncle searched all morning for them. In despair, they returned to camp. They found Mary kneeling in prayer, asking the Lord to help them recover their lost team. She then started toward the river and soon found the oxen by a clump of willows.

As rich as those blessings were, the reality of temple blessings became especially poignant in 2007. The morning of October 21, our twins, then 17, were in a car accident. Tessa sustained minor injuries, but Jenna’s condition was serious. She was taken to an area hospital, where she lay in a coma. When we learned she might not live, our three oldest children returned from college. As we spent the next days together in Jenna’s hospital room, our family took great comfort in the ordinances that will allow us to be together after death. We spent time talking about the eternal nature of families—of our family. A week after the accident, Jenna passed away.

Our temple covenants have become even more important to us since her death. We miss Jenna terribly and long for the day when we can be together again, but our faith in the plan of salvation and our testimony of eternal families sustain us. We display in our home a picture of our family at the temple, which reminds us of our experience and the promises we know can be ours.

In 1946 I was assigned by President George Albert Smith to go to war-torn Europe and reestablish our missions from Norway to South Africa and to set up a program for the distribution of welfare supplies.

We established headquarters in London. We then made preliminary arrangements with the military on the continent. One of the first men I wished to see was the commander of the American forces in Europe. He was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany.

When we arrived in Frankfurt, my companion and I went in to seek an appointment with the general. The appointment officer said, “Gentlemen, there will be no opportunity for you to see the general for at least three days. He’s very busy and his calendar is filled up with appointments.”

I said, “It is very important that we see him, and we can’t wait that long. We’re due in Berlin tomorrow.”

He said, “I’m sorry.”

We left the building, went out to our car, removed our hats, and united in prayer. We then went back into the building and found a different officer at the appointment post. In less than fifteen minutes we were in the presence of the general. We had prayed that we would be able to see him and to touch his heart, knowing that all relief supplies contributed from any source were then required to be placed in the hands of the military for distribution. Our objective, as we explained it to the general, was to distribute our own supplies to our own people through our own channels, and also to make gifts for general child feeding.

We explained the welfare program and how it operated. Finally, he said, “Well, gentlemen, you go ahead and collect your supplies; and by the time you get them collected, the policy may be changed.” We said, “General, our supplies are already collected; they’re always collected. Within twenty-four hours from the time we wire the First Presidency of the Church in Salt Lake City, carloads of supplies will be rolling toward Germany. We have many storehouses filled with basic commodities.”

He then said, “I’ve never heard of a people with such vision.” His heart was touched as we had prayed it would be. Before we left his office, we had a written authorization to make our own distribution to our own people through our own channels.

I want to thank Dan Lindstrom whose fireside talk “My Own Movie” was printed in the April 1979 New Era. When I read it, I was having trouble with the missionary work. In our apartment was a stack of old New Eras, and I found myself reading them from cover to cover. I would rise each day at 5:00 A.M. just to read them. One day I read the article by Brother Lindstrom, and it sank home. I started to question myself, and found I needed some great improvement. Since then I have been very careful in what I do and say. I have given myself to the work, and success is finally coming my way.
Elder Bryan CookFlorida Ft. Lauderdale Mission

“I was in sacrament meeting when it happened,” said Joyce Allsop, 19, of the Yakima Fifth Ward, Yakima Washington Stake, about a hundred miles from Mt. St. Helens. “I looked out the window and everything was getting darker and darker. There were flashes of eerie, orange-red lightning through the ash particles, like nothing I’ve ever seen before, but no rain. The thunder came so close that we all ducked, and the building shook. We thought it would fall down on us. Then everything turned pitch black, at 10:00 in the morning, and stayed that way for 24 hours.
“Outside, ashes were falling like snow, only you could feel it, like sand pelting you. Then it started coming down like a heavy, gritty rain.”
The members of Joyce’s ward were told that the volcano had erupted and that the roads were extremely hazardous, with visibility down to zero. She and a friend decided to drive the 20 miles home, because they wanted to be with their families.
“As soon as we got into the car, we said a prayer to help us get home. We started out and could barely see anything, it was so dark. Cars where pulled off in ditches to the side of the road because people couldn’t see where the road was. Most people had no idea where they were. The only way we ever made it home was with the Lord’s help.
“When we got home, we got calls from all sorts of concerned people, some we hardly even knew, checking that we’d made it home safely,” she added.
The abrupt change from a peaceful, secure life to not knowing what would happen gave Joyce a lot to think about.
“I realized how blessed we were to get home safely. And I thought, if this is anything like the Second Coming, we have to be more prepared. I think I could also relate a little to how the Nephites must have felt when Christ was crucified, when it turned pitch black. Those words from the Book of Mormon suddenly took on new meaning.
“I also understood how powerful the forces of nature are and how quickly the world could be destroyed. And I realized, more fully why we need to have food storage and clothing, supplies, and water on hand. As soon as the general public in Yakima heard that the roads were closed because of the eruption, they all rushed to stock up on supplies. Now a lot of the single people from home are starting their own food storage programs,” said Joyce.

When I was 17 years old, I had been to many different Church dances, early morning seminary classes, and even a few Church meetings, but I was not a member of the Church.
One Sunday afternoon I was home with my mom. I think I had disappointed her and was feeling very down. My friend Karen called to see if I wanted to go to a fireside with her. I wasn’t familiar with that meeting. I truly thought that we would be outdoors by a campfire.
I agreed and attended the fireside with her and several other friends. I remember that as the speaker came to the pulpit, he started by saying, “Who am I?”
I thought to myself, “I am a horrible person. My mom is mad at me.” The speaker continued, “I am a son, I am a father, I am an uncle, I am an American citizen.” And then he paused. It became very quiet, and he said, “I am a child of God.”
He looked into the audience. He looked at me and said, “You are a child of God.” And then he looked to someone else and said again, “You are a child of God.”
I was not yet familiar with the Spirit and what it felt like, but I got a lump in my throat and started to cry. I was a little embarrassed and didn’t know what to think, so I left. I walked down the hall and found a phone and called my sister and her husband, who are Church members, and asked if I could talk to the missionaries that night. We met with them, and I was baptized three weeks later. The Spirit truly witnessed to me that night that I was a child of God.

Fortunately, our loving Father continued to direct an orderly evacuation amid severe devastation. Long-distance travel was dangerous. There were continuing aftershocks. Public transportation was shut down. Water and electrical supplies were interrupted, and it was nearly impossible to buy gas or food. Sister Tateoka and I understood very well that we were the only ones able to reach two elders in a mountainous area and two other elders over the mountain on the other side of the island. Freeways were closed, so this last trip would require a five- or six-hour drive one-way north up the mountain on back roads, another two to three hours over the mountains and down to Tsuruoka, and four more hours back to safety.
We left early on the morning of March 16 and arrived at Elder Ohsugi’s and Elder Yuasa’s apartment around 5:00 p.m. To pick up the last two elders, we needed to travel back south, over a mountain summit, and down to the city of Tsuruoka. With less than half a tank of gas, we knew that we could not turn back. As we began traveling to pick up the last two elders, snow began to fall. Soon, we found ourselves in a blinding snowstorm, traveling at less than 15 miles (24 km) per hour. I could not see the lines on the highway.
At 7:30 p.m., as we finally reached the summit, we were stopped by the police. An officer informed me that an avalanche had blocked the road and closed the mountain pass. He told me that we could go no farther; we had to turn around and take an alternate route to the other side of the island around the avalanche. Without enough gas to go around the avalanche, it appeared we had no way to reach Elder Lay and Elder Ruefenacht in Tsuruoka.
Dejectedly, we turned back as directed by the police. I asked the elders in the van to call every member of the Yamagata Ward to see if we could find someone who could give us some gasoline. We stopped and prayed earnestly, drawing upon all of the power of heaven we could. We prayed for another miracle and again turned to the Lord.
The missionaries called every active member. But no one had gasoline. Gas stations had run out of supplies and were closed. Then the elders were impressed to call an less-active friend, Brother Tsuchihashi. Our Heavenly Father had once again directed our path. Brother Tsuchihashi could give us 20 liters (5 gallons) of gas. But to meet this good brother, we had to travel another hour north, the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. The quantity of gas would be helpful but not sufficient to allow us to travel around the avalanche.
Having faith, we traveled north, still not knowing how we would pick up the other two elders. We made it to Shinjo City, where we received the 20 liters of gas. Soon thereafter, I received a call from President Yoshida, my counselor, who by now was very worried that we had not yet returned. He asked where we were, and when I told him Shinjo, he was shocked that we were so far out of our way. It was beyond his ability to reach us and help us return.
Then he looked on his map, and in a broken voice stammered, “There is a little-known mountain pass that will take you from Shinjo to the elders in Tsuruoka.” The Lord had prepared a way for us to be precisely where we needed to be to drive around the avalanche. The gasoline we were given was exactly the amount necessary to make the trip safely around the avalanche to pick up the elders.

I felt spiritually numb. I wondered if the Lord still cared about me or if he really loved me. Heavenly Father seemed far away.
I was letting myself feel smothered by my children’s endless requests, by Church responsibilities, and by the absence of my hard-working husband, who was often gone when I seemed to need him most. With all of the demands on my time, I felt unfulfilled and overwhelmed.
But when my visiting teachers arrived for their monthly visit, I put on my usual happy face. I hid the torment I felt inside. We exchanged news of the happenings in our lives. I can’t remember the message they shared that month. I felt invisible as their words glided past me.
As we stood at the door saying our goodbyes, I thought, What a waste of time. They don’t realize how I truly feel inside. And even if they did, would they care?
My body wanted to retreat into sleep, but I mechanically worked through my chores, expecting no other interruptions to break up my daily routine. I was surprised a few hours later when the doorbell rang.
It was Julie, the younger of my two visiting teachers. She stepped inside, took both of my hands in hers, and asked me about a place to pray.
Not quite clear on what she was asking me, I replied, “Julie, why are you here again?”
She said lovingly, “When I returned home today, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Earlier, during our visit, I saw the anguish in your eyes. After I returned home, whatever I tried to do was interrupted by thoughts of you. Finally I stopped my work and knelt in prayer. I asked, ‘Lord, help me help Ruth.’ It occurred to me that the answer I sought had to do with what I was doing right then: kneeling in prayer before my Heavenly Father.”
I stood in silence through Julie’s explanation. With tears filling her eyes, she affirmed, “Ruth, I felt compelled by the Spirit to come back here today. I know you are having trouble praying, and I know you don’t feel loved by your Heavenly Father.” Her words seized my attention. I could not deny the truthfulness of her discovery.
“Is there a place where we could pray?” she repeated.
“Yes, I guess so,” I stammered.
As we moved to another room, she said, “Ruth, I would like to offer a prayer, and then I want you to pray.” I interrupted: “Oh, no—not me!” I told her that I didn’t think Heavenly Father would listen to me, that I didn’t feel I could ask him anything anymore. But Julie sank to her knees. We knelt side by side.
She said, “Just ask him this one simple question: ‘Am I loved?’” Then Julie began to pray. Her special prayer in my behalf softened my heart. The sweet spirit filling my heart subdued my anger and frustrations.
I realized that Heavenly Father was near, and he was waiting.
At the conclusion of Julie’s prayer, she said, “Now it’s your turn, Ruth.”
Silence blanketed the room, and the next few moments seemed like hours before the words would come. “Heavenly Father,” I finally began, “dost thou love me?” Tears flowed as I asked the question. A few moments later, my answer came, forming itself in the silence of my aching heart—“You need not ask what you already know.” It was distinct and clear.
Those words, “you already know,” came to me with warmth and love. They filled empty places within me, and I began to draw upon all the truths I had been taught throughout my life. In that moment I remembered anew the many ways Heavenly Father loves me. His love had been there all along.
Since that moment when I felt God’s love again, my gratitude has increased for his Son, Jesus the Christ, and for others who have extended his love. I am especially grateful for Julie and have tried since then to be one who, like her, can extend our Savior’s love to others in their moments of need.

When Colby was old enough to start seminary, a scheduling conflict had to be dealt with. Fishing began at 5:00 a.m. and lasted many hours. Seminary was at 6:00 a.m. He couldn’t possibly be in two places at once … or could he?
Colby started joining seminary on a video call each morning at 6:00 so he could fulfill both his fishing duties and further his spiritual education. “I always felt I was starting the day with a big spiritual boost,” he says. “I loved being on the water for seminary. It was calm and peaceful, and I felt the Spirit of the Lord out there.”
He’d listen and ponder, read the scriptures, and participate in the discussion with his teachers and classmates. Then, at 6:45 a.m., he’d get back to fishing.
Sure, seminary on a fishing boat wasn’t always ideal. The engine noise was loud and distracting. The water was often choppy, and the boat was bustling with early morning work. Sometimes stormy weather would prevent Colby from having a good connection to join his video call. “Attending seminary on the lobster boat was hard,” he says. “It would have been easier not to do it. But I’m so glad that I took the time each day to participate in seminary.”
When Elder Merryman reflects on his seminary experience on the fishing boat, he says it “has made a difference on my mission.” His seminary class taught him “many valuable stories from the scriptures.” Those stories and lessons have, in turn, prepared him to teach the gospel by the Spirit. “Every day I use the lessons I learned in seminary.”

Luis and Karla met as teenagers in Honduras. They began dating and soon married. Luis, not a member of the Church, admired Karla’s parents, who “treated each other with respect and love, and this made me want to learn about their values.” Soon Luis was baptized, and Karla and Luis were sealed in the Guatemala City Guatemala Temple. In their early 30s, their relationship came under stress, and Karla left home, questioning whether their teenage marriage was a mistake. Luis fasted and prayed and asked God to “bring Karla back home, and He did it. He did it.” Today their marriage is stronger than ever.

Shannon, a young mother, did not expect that she would teach her children the power of prayer when they piled into their van to drive to their home just 40 minutes away. There was no storm when they left their grandmother’s home, but as they began to drive through the canyon, the light snow turned into a blizzard. The van began sliding on the surface of the road. Soon visibility was near zero. The two youngest children could sense the stress of the situation and began to cry. Shannon said to the older children, Heidi and Thomas, ages eight and six, “You need to pray. We need Heavenly Father’s help to get home safely. Pray that we will not get stuck and that we will not slide off the road.” Her hands shook as she steered the car, yet she could hear the whisper of little prayers repeatedly coming from the backseat: “Heavenly Father, please help us get home safely; please help us so we will not slide off the road.”

In time, the prayers calmed the two little ones, and they stopped their crying just as they learned that a road closure prevented them from driving any farther. Cautiously, they turned around and found a motel for the night. Once in the motel, they knelt down and thanked Heavenly Father for their safety. That night a mother taught her children the power of holding true to prayer.

A story is told of an English farmer at work one day in his fields when he saw a party of huntsmen riding about his farm. Concerned that they might ride into a field where the crop could be damaged by the tramp of horses, he sent one of his workmen to shut the gate and then keep watch over it and on no account to open it. He had scarcely arrived at his post when the hunters came up and ordered that the gate be opened. He declined to do so, stating the orders he had received, and steadfastly refused to open the gate in spite of the threats and bribes as one after another of the hunters came forward.
Then one of the riders came up and said in commanding tones, “My boy, do you know me? I am the Duke of Wellington, one not accustomed to being disobeyed, and I command you to open that gate, that I and my friends may pass through.”
The boy lifted his hat, and before the man whom all England delighted to honor, answered firmly, “I am sure the Duke of Wellington would not wish me to disobey orders. I must keep this gate shut, nor suffer anyone to pass but by my master’s express permission.”
Greatly pleased, the duke lifted his own hat and said, “I honor the man or boy who can be neither bribed or frightened into doing wrong. With an army of such soldiers, I could conquer not only the French, but the world.”

The last week home was sad. I wasn’t having second thoughts or anything, but I sure was scared, and I realized how homesick I was going to be.
A couple of days before I left home to enter the MTC, I decided to walk from our house to Gus’s station, about two miles away, just to visit him at work one last time.
As I walked, I thought about Gus and myself. We’re the only kids in our home. We’ve always been close, even though we’re so different and he’s five years older.
Gus used to be active in the Church. He had become a deacon. Then about the time he entered junior high school he started to rebel. My parents were patient but heartbroken.
Gus was tough and mean and popular. I was never Paul—I was Gus’s little brother. But that was okay, because the big guys left me alone.
People marveled we were brothers.
When I was a senior in high school I had already decided to serve a mission, so my hair was always cut short—missionary style. That school year Gus and I would always go to lunch together.
He’d lock up his station and pick me up in front of the high school on his mean Harley-Davidson. We sure must have looked funny riding down the street—Gus with his beard and long hair, something out of a motorcycle gang, and me, “Mr. Clean,” your basic prospective missionary.
I approached Gus’s station that day from a trail in back of it and was rounding the corner to go into the office when I overheard Gus talking to someone about me. I stopped to listen. They didn’t know I was there.
“Did I tell you Paul is going on a mission?” Gus asked.
“Yer kiddin?” It was the voice of Rod, Gus’s best friend, my worst enemy.
“Nope, I’m real proud of the kid.”
“He’s a ‘boot licker,’” Rod cynically responded. “You don’t believe all that stuff about Joseph Smith do ya?”
I doubled my fist in instant anxiety.
How would Gus answer the question? Would he say what he really felt to Rod? His influence had always persuaded Gus to do wrong, which was why I disliked him so much.
Gus thought before he answered.
I can’t explain what his words did to me when he finally spoke. There are things in life you’ll never forget.
“Well, Rod buddy,” he said, “let me tell you. I don’t know everything; neither do you. It could be true. All I know is it sure makes a difference in Paul. He loves it.”
Rod continued to attack me.
“He idolizes you, Gus. He’d do anything you told him to, even if he thought it was wrong.”
“No he wouldn’t,” Gus defended. “He’s never been anything like me. If more Mormons were like him, I could maybe stand being around them. Nothing’s worse than a self-righteous Mormon. He’s never judged me. And he hasn’t given my parents nearly the heartache I have.”
Then Gus said something that really made me think.
“Anyway, if I ever caught him doing something wrong, if he ever let me down, so help me, I’d punch him out.”
I left them talking and started back home without them ever knowing I had been there. A lump formed in my throat as I realized why Gus had seemed so excited about my mission. Now I knew why he had always supported me.
You see, he needed me to be strong where he had been weak. I vowed that very day I would be strong for him. I’d resist my temptations. I would not let him down. He needed to know someone could be good. I would be.

Each day at sunset, I sat on a rock looking out over the Pacific Ocean. I often imagined that on the other side of the water was our Heavenly Father’s temple, near which many of my brothers and sisters were living in happiness. I couldn’t help but weep, remembering the wonderful times I had had with my fellow Saints in the Saigon chapel.
From that day forth, our small branch awakened as if from a deep sleep. A presiding elder was chosen to lead us. We were able to communicate sometimes with the Church and other members through VASAA (Veterans Assisting Saints Abroad Association). I was finally given permission to leave Viet Nam. VASAA had helped to arrange with the Canadian and Vietnamese governments for my exit visa. My oldest son living in Toronto, Ontario, sponsored me.
Less than a year later, in March and April 1988, I was finally able to visit Salt Lake City for ten days and attend general conference. I met many friends, missionaries, and General Authorities. The first time I saw Temple Square I could not help but weep for my blessings. In the Tiger’s Den, it had been my greatest wish to see the temple. At last, I was able to receive my endowment in the Lord’s House.